Pendles confirms finger break

Scott Pendlebury‘s immediate future is under a cloud, with the Collingwood skipper to undergo surgery on a broken finger on Monday evening.

Pendlebury suffered the injury in the third quarter of the Magpies’ 15-point win over Gold Coast on Saturday when he attempted to tackle Suns dasher Adam Saad.

The Pies captain appeared to get his right finger caught in Saad’s jumper and immediately winced in pain when he slipped off the tackle. But he returned to play out the game.

“I’ve broken my finger, up the top there, and I’ll go in tonight and get surgery to get a pin in it and from there we’ll see about the recovery and how long it takes,” Pendlebury said on Monday.

“It’s a bit of a wait and see (on the recovery period) until they (the surgeon) go in there.”

Pendlebury, who had his hand in a splint when he addressed the media, is hopeful of returning later in the season, but said more would be known after he goes under the knife later on Monday.

“Hopefully we get a good result and I can back out on the field at some stage this year,” Pendlebury said.

“I’ll just follow the medical advice on what to do to get back and whether it’s two, three, four, five weeks, or whatever it is, I’ll just go about the process.”

Pendlebury has been incredibly durable during his 252-game career and has missed just two matches, round 13 last season (with an ankle injury) and round 21, 2014 (when he was a late withdrawal with a quad injury) since 2012.

The Collingwood captain has again had a brilliant season, averaging 28.1 disposals from 16 matches.

Pendlebury would join coach Nathan Buckley on six club best and fairest awards should he win his fifth straight Copeland Trophy at the end of the season.